Chapter
3.—Some Desires Being the Same in All, are Known to Each. The
Poet Ennius.

6. There is, indeed, so closely
conspiring a harmony in the same nature living and using reason,
that although one knows not what the other wills, yet there are
some wills of all which are also known to each; and although each
man does not know what any other one man wills, yet in some things
he may know what all will. And hence comes that story of the comic
actor’s witty joke, who promised that he would say in the
theatre, in some other play, what all had in their minds, and what
all willed; and when a still greater crowd had come together on the
day appointed, with great expectation, all being in suspense and
silent, is affirmed to have said: You will to buy cheap, and sell
dear. And mean actor though he was, yet all in his words recognized
what themselves were conscious of, and applauded him with wonderful
goodwill, for saying before the eyes of all what was confessedly
true, yet what no one looked for. And why was so great expectation
raised by his promising that he would say what was the will of all,
unless because no man knows the wills of other men? But did not he
know that will? Is there any one who does not know it? Yet why,
unless because there are some things which not unfitly each
conjectures from himself to be in others, through sympathy or
agreement either in vice or virtue? But it is one thing to see
one’s own will; another to conjecture, however certainly, what is
another’s. For, in human affairs, I am as certain that Rome was
built as that Constantinople was, although I have seen Rome with my
eyes, but know nothing of the other city, except what I have
believed on the testimony of others. And truly that comic actor
believed it to be common to all to will to buy cheap and sell dear,
either by observing himself or by making experiment also of others.
But since such a will is in truth a fault, every one can attain the
counter virtue, or run into the mischief of some other fault which
is contrary to it, whereby to resist and conquer it. For I myself
know a case where a manuscript was offered to a man for purchase,
who perceived that the vendor was ignorant of its value, and was
therefore asking something very small, and who thereupon gave him,
though not expecting it, the just price, which was much more.
Suppose even the case of a man possessed with wickedness so great
as to sell cheap what his parents left to him, and to buy dear, in
order to waste it on his own lusts? Such wanton extravagance, I
fancy, is not incredible; and if such men are sought, they may be
found, or even fall in one’s way although not sought; who, by a
wickedness more than that of the theatre, make a mock of the
theatrical proposition or declaration, by buying dishonor at a
great price, while selling lands at a small one. We have heard,
too, of persons that, for the sake of distribution, have bought
corn at a higher 170price, and sold it to their
fellow-citizens at a lower one. And note also what the old poet
Ennius has said: that “all mortals wish themselves to be
praised;” wherein, doubtless, he conjectured what was in others,
both by himself, and by those whom he knew by experience; and so
seems to have declared what it is that all men will. Lastly, if
that comic actor himself, too, had said, You all will to be
praised, no one of you wills to be abused; he would have seemed in
like manner to have expressed what all will. Yet there are some who
hate their own faults, and do not desire to be praised by others
for that for which they are displeased with themselves; and who
thank the kindness of those who rebuke them, when the purpose of
that rebuke is their own amendment. But if he had said, You all
will to be blessed, you do not will to be wretched; he would have
said something which there is no one that would not recognize in
his own will. For whatever else a man may will secretly, he does
not withdraw from that will, which is well known to all men, and
well known to be in all men.